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SISTERS-IN-AWE
YMCA Y-Neptunes Gina and Carly Ungaro exhibit the normal sibling rivalry but are each other’s biggest supporters, especially in the pool
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Stop if you’ve heard a story like this before.
Gina Ungaro had just gotten home from a successful swim meet this winter when she was greeted by her mother who told her congratulations and gave her a hug.
So Gina’s younger sister, Carly, did what younger sisters do.
“Carly goes, ‘Her time was terrible!’” Gina said, laughing, as she almost sing-songed the last word. “And I was like, ‘Hey, you took second!’
“And then we just went on and on.”
Gina, 12, and Carly, 9, are two of the most talented swimmers to ever swim with the YMCA Y-Neptunes, a club team that competes at the downtown YMCA. Between them, they own more than a dozen team or pool records, and both are strong in all four strokes. Their coach, Sue Mellish, raves about them.
“They each get very excited for the other’s successes,” Mellish said. “Gina is amazed her sister is so fast. Carly wants to be just like her big sister.”
But, let’s face it, they’re pre-teens. They’re sisters. And for all their encouragement, it’s more fun to read about the mean stuff than the warm-and-fuzzy stuff.
GINA: “We have our good days and our bad days, don’t we?”
CARLY: “She makes me get her stuff all the time. She’s always like, ‘Get me some water.’”
GINA: “She’s a little slave.”
Gina started swimming four years ago, and Carly started two years ago. (“The old ‘the sibling’s swimming so she throws her in the pool because she’s bored out of her mind’ thing,” Mellish said.)
Both showed natural ability, and Gina had a breakout year as a 10-year-old in 2009-10, setting seven team/pool records while earning the nickname “Gina The Machine-a.” Gina competed as an 11-year-old this winter — she turned 12 in March — and set a pool record in the 50-yard freestyle that had been set in 1997 by Canfield’s Meghan Linnelli (who only went on to swim at Notre Dame).
Because she was at least a year behind most of the top swimmers in her age group this year, Gina wasn’t as dominant this past winter. Still, she fared better than any of the Y-Neptunes’ 31 qualifiers at last month’s Great Lakes YMCA Zones Championship meet at Ohio State, which featured swimmers from Michigan, West Virginia and Indiana. Gina placed in the top 17 in five of her six events — each event usually has between 30 and 40 qualifiers — and should do even better next year.
“Whenever I get discouraged, I just think about all my accomplishments from last year and think, ‘It’s not that bad,’” said Gina, who swims at the Poland Swim Club with her sister in the summer. “I knew I wasn’t going to take first because there were a lot of girls in front of me, but I’m not far away.”
Carly competed as an 8-year-old, and her times weren’t quite good enough for Zones — the events start at 10-and-under, and you only see 8-year-olds in relays — but she did break Linnelli’s 8-and-under team and pool records in the 25 free, as well as team and pool records in the 50 free and 25 breaststroke. All of those records were at least 10 years old, and one of them was 25 years old.
“Carly was on a team that won one of its 8-and-under relays by half a length of a pool,” Mellish said. “It was fun for me as a coach because there’s my team that’s coming.”
And while Gina gets more attention right now, it’s only a matter of time before more people know about Carly.
“It’s hard because I would be in the newspaper, and we see someone out at a store and they’d be like, ‘Oh, Gina, you’re that great swimmer,’” Gina said. “And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, she [Carly swims, too.’
“But she did great this year. She’s going to be really good.”
For more details on Y-Neptunes, visit http:// youngstownneptunes.webs.com.